


We're Making It Up As We Go

by Illume



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Dean Winchester Needs a Hug, Dean Winchester Needs to Use Actual Words, Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings, Emotionally Repressed, Emotionally Repressed Dean Winchester, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Memories, POV Dean Winchester, Season/Series 15 Spoilers, Spoilers, Spoilers for Episode: s15e18 Despair, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27505009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illume/pseuds/Illume
Summary: He had to wait until Chuck was gone before letting himself think about those things.It never occurred to Dean that there may not be an after.---Or, a Dean Winchester train of thought, having to process everything he had avoided for twelve years.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Jack Kline & Dean Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 43





	We're Making It Up As We Go

It was all a script.

He had been angry. Angry because his entire life had been a lie. Angry because even after stopping the Apocalypse, he hadn’t been able to choose, to really choose. His life with Lisa and Ben, the one time he thought he had made it out, had been nothing but a chapter on a book. The mistakes he had made, those that he couldn’t stop thinking about, even after years and years. The lives, the deaths, all the things that had fallen one on top of the other from the moment John Winchester had given up his life (and his soul) to save his son, leaving him feeling nothing but emptiness and guilt. It would be so easy to pass the fault of all those things to Chuck; but he couldn’t do that. Chuck had made it his fault, and every day that Dean had thought that he was making his own choices was a day that he had allowed God to make him, and everyone he loved, his playthings.

So, maybe Dean hadn’t been angry. He had been furious.

How could he trust that everything would be okay this time? How could he look around to the place had called home and not think that it was another part of Chuck’s design? How could he look at his family, his brother, his best friend,...his child; how could he look at them without wondering if the love he felt for them was another plot device? He couldn’t. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t. And he hated that.

“You asked ‘what of this is real’. We are.”

And then, Dean wasn’t just furious, he was scared.

Because those had been the perfect words. The perfect line. A line. That was what kept repeating in his head. The words had been just right, so right that someone might as well had written them.

It had to stop. They had to stop Chuck. Dean had to stop him. Only when he was sure that the author of all of his misery was dead, only then could he stop thinking about it. How many times had God written the perfect words for Cas to say? How many times had he watched the angel die, feeling broken and defeated, while Chuck popped another popcorn into his mouth.

In anger he could trust. Because he knew why he was angry and he knew perfectly well what to do with that anger. When he felt that burning heat rise inside of him, wanting nothing but to get rid of the strings he hadn’t seen before, he didn’t care about anything else.

He could deal with Sam’s anger after he made sure it was real. He could deal with the grief of losing Jack when he found out if his love for the kid really came from within him. And Cas...he could deal with Cas after it was all over, if he ever had to. But, in the meantime, he had to push them away so the fear couldn’t reach him. He had to convince himself that whatever hope his brother and best friend still harbored was useless and childish. He had to convince himself that Jack was different, that he wasn’t really family, that he was only part of the story, that he could afford to lose him.

And so he did. And he did it so well that he almost sent his own kid to the slaughterhouse. So well that he almost shot his baby brother. Just to be free.

But who would be left after he reached that freedom?

“Everyone goes back to where they belong. That means everybody from Apocalypse World; Bobby, Charlie. They get sent back to a place that doesn’t exist anymore. And everyone we saved. Eileen, she j-just dies. Again. And that’s just the beginning.”

Cas…

Cas had died. Cas had died more times than he could count. And, each time, it was saving him. Helping him. Protecting him.

No. He couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t think about any of that because of Chuck. He had to. He needed to know it was real first. He needed him dead, no matter what.

“What about me? Would you...trade me?”

No Jack. No Cas. No Sam.

Nothing.

He could have freedom, but then he’d had nothing left. He’d be alone and empty, again. Because then, then even his fury would leave him.

“It’s the only thing I’ve ever known that was true...”

And that made it two. Two times he’d heard those words. Two times they buried themselves into his chest, trying to cut through the venom festering there. It had always been them. No matter how bad it all looked, whenever they found themselves in the eleventh hour, he felt himself believing those words “We’ll find another way, you and me. We always do”

A way that didn’t involve losing Sam to his rage. A way that didn’t force him to sacrifice his kid to his pain. A way that didn’t have him losing Cas to his fear. Another way. He needed another way.

Then it happened again. Chuck.

Because even his rage was planned. Him hurting his brother, hurting his best friend, letting Jack become a goddamned time bomb. It was Sam and Cas that had it right all that time and he hadn’t listened.

“You know what every other version of you did after ‘gripping him tight and raising him from perdition’ They did what they were told. But not you!”

Wasn’t that a splash of cold water straight to his face?

But he couldn’t dwell on it. He couldn’t let himself follow that train of thought.

He couldn’t think about the times that Cas had put himself in the line of fire for them, the times he chose them over his brothers and sisters. The times he assured Dean that he would be by his side, no matter what. He couldn’t think about how afraid he was when thinking that all those memories were lies. He couldn’t think of the relief he felt that they were true, that they were real.

In the middle of everything in Dean’s life that followed a script that forced him to dance like a trained monkey, there was Cas. Cas was the one aspect that was unscripted, and it was just here. In every other world, those where he had followed one of God’s plans, the ones that ended with Chuck clapping in approval; in those worlds, he didn’t have Cas.

His Cas was real. They were real.

Then, maybe, maybe it was all real. The smiles, the nudges, the tears, the pain, the longing, the deep sighs, the lingering touches, the moments…

And that was exactly why he couldn’t think about that.

They’d have time after all of this was over.

At least that’s what he had thought. What he had hoped.

But where had hope ever taken Dean?

It was only a matter of time before he did what he had always done: fuck up.

And it just had to happen when Cas was right by his side. When they were away from Sam and Jack, who were surrounded by the people they cared about, ready to watch them die; because Dean had failed. He had failed them. He had failed Cas.

Billie was going to kill them, because try as they might, no sigil could stop her long enough. And she was angry, at both of them, but more so at Dean. And she probably knew, she had to know. So, she would kill Cas first, she would kill him because he was there, like always, ready to bleed and hide and die with Dean.

Echoes began running through his head as Cas spoke, with each word, Dean could feel them growing louder, becoming clearer. Moments. Words. Thoughts. All of it racing as he tried to understand. It was all crashing around in his head at the same time, everything he hadn’t allowed himself to think for so long. But now he knew it had all been real. He knew that this one single part of his life, this one single person in front of him, the angel he was going to die with, he knew that he was real. He knew that the words coming out of his mouth were real. They had always been real...

He remembered that he had heard something like this before, a long time ago.

“I’m doing this for you. I’m doing this because of you”

Dean had always told himself that those words were meant for him and Sam. The Winchesters. His friends. His family. He had constantly reminded himself about what Anna had said, that angels cannot love, they cannot feel. Castiel could be a friend, he could be family, and Dean would provide the feelings for the both of them. Then Isham had called him Cas’ “human weakness”. Just him. But Dean had been content with killing the bastard and forgetting about it. Because he couldn’t. He didn’t know how to do it.

Kill monsters, exorcise demons, go to Hell, to Purgatory, fight angels, fight Leviathans. He knew how to do all those things, sometimes to the point where it became second nature to him. But he didn’t know how to think about these things, or even how to translate what he felt into a single thought, let alone words. How could he say out loud what he hadn’t allowed himself to even think about?

And then it was over. He was on the floor and it was all over. Gone.

They were off the book.

The thought that had brought him hope a few hours before now kept him sitting on the ground, unable to get up, unable to speak.

Because that meant that there was no story to finish neatly; no third act to bring back hope before the end. No chances of a happy ending. He didn’t get another chance, because he had lost his last. God wasn’t going to snap his fingers and bring him back. Jack couldn’t use his powers to awaken him again. And he couldn’t follow behind, fall on his knees and pray.

There was no deal, no powers, no mystical forces conspiring to help. It was just him. Him and what was left of their family.

He couldn’t even stop to wonder how many of them were left. If it was just Sam.

Because Cas. Cas was gone.

He was gone because he loved him, because that was the type of luck Dean Winchester really had. Outside of the deus ex machina bullshit, that was all he was. He was someone who kept losing the people who loved him.

“The very touch of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost!”

That’s what an angel had said to him once. Maybe she was right, because it was because of him that Cas was gone. Because he trusted Dean and wanted to stand by his side...because he loved Dean. And loving him was what took him away.

He wanted to be angry. He wanted to rage at Castiel, to call him a child again and resent him for leaving before he could say anything other than the confused words that he managed to get out. But how could he? How could he get back up from the ground with a scowl when all he had left of the angel was the blood left on his jacket? Another echo of all the opportunities he had missed.

“If I let myself go, I’ll lose my mind. I can’t right now”

Sam was trying to be strong to do what needed to be done. And, if anyone asked, Sam would’ve said he learned that from his big brother. But Dean couldn’t be the person that the man thought he was. He couldn’t be the man that Cas had described.

He was nothing. He had nothing.

No hope, no friends, no second chances.

The one thread that was different. The single aspect of his life that was certain to break off the mold at every single moment...was gone.

The only person in his life that couldn’t have...shouldn’t have cared about him...loved him.

The angel watching over him, the one that followed him to the ends of the world without a question, loved him. And he had died just after letting him know that.

And in that moment, after wasting the last opportunity he had. At that moment, Dean finally lets himself think, and feel. And he realizes, with a crushing despair that numbs him, that Castiel was wrong. Because Dean Winchester loves him back.

**Author's Note:**

> I really need to stop coping with sad things by making them sadder.


End file.
